It Rained Then Too
by Ink On Paper
Summary: A piece on the five women that Tony DiNozzo had lost and how the rain had fallen.


**A/N: I only know for certain that it rained when Kate died, so the others may not be exactly in sync with the actual episodes. Be aware there are spoilers for 'Twilight' 'Grace Period' 'Whatever Episode Had Jeanne Leaving In It' 'Judgement Day' and 'Aliyah/Truth and Consequences.' This is my first Angst attempt -so let me know what you think if you want. Constructive criticism is totally welcomed and appreciated. This is longest author's note I've ever written so I'll shut up now and let you get on with the reading!**

**Disclaimer: I own nothing. Sad, I know, but true.**

**It Rained Then Too**

It had rained the day Kate died. The water droplets cleansing the Navy Yard, washing away the crimson stain on that morbid rooftop. He had wound up soaked to the skin and shivering with numbness, though the numbness was welcomed because it was so very hard to endure pain, but so very easy to feel nothing. He wondered, vaguely, if some divine force was attempting to drown out the memories of the fallen woman –only to realize it wouldn't matter if that was the truth, for as long as he drew air, he would never forget Caitlin Todd because he had loved her. . . .

It had rained the day Paula died. The downpour serving to further extinguish the dead flames of the scene on which death had claimed her. She had shed so many tears in those previous twenty-four hours, tears shed for men that should not have died, men that should have lived because it was him and his team that should have been there instead. Should have. . . . There were too many should haves. Should have told her he loved her, should have stopped the grief-stricken woman for sacrifices herself. Chalk up three lives spent in the past two dozen hours for his sake. His worthless sake. . . . And when he arrived on the doorstep and uttered the words he should have said before, he was damp with grief and rain because Paula Cassidy was dead and he had loved her. . . .

It had rained the day Jeanne died. Granted, she wasn't dead in the physical sense, but he was dead to her and, he supposed, she was dead to him. She could have screamed at him, could have slapped him, but instead she just left with her broken heart bleeding all over the floor and staining him as he stood there, watching cruelly. It poured that day, after the moon had risen and he was at the mercy of alcohol. Drunk enough to think no more, but sober enough to feel every knife of sadness that was lodged into his heart. Because Jeanne Benoit was gone and he had loved her. . . .

It had rained the day that Jenny died. All alone and in a hail of bullets with no one around her but the men that dealt that death. And granted, it did not really rain that day in the desert, no water hit that dry parched soil, save from the tears that slid down his and his partner's face. However when he returned to the other side of the country, the ground was wet and the sky was dark. And when he began to drink to her memory in the recesses of an ice cold basement, he realized how if only he had looked for, worried about her, then she might still be alive. And that thought drove him as he stood and watched a man sitting in a lukewarm chair belonging to a woman that had died valiantly less than two days prior tore his world apart and exiled him to a forsaken ship in the middle of nowhere. He didn't care anyway because Jenny Sheppard was dead and he had loved her. . . .

The day Ziva died, he thought that surely he must die too. His apartment was suddenly so big and so cold and so lonely, the only thing that filled the empty silence was his periodic sobs. He didn't drink that night because what was the point in the numbness anyway? He could drink all the alcohol in the world and it wouldn't change the fact that another woman he loved was dead and gone and he could have changed that if only he had looked for her sooner, reached out to her sooner. And he knew he could end all his suffering, all his misery and grief and never be bothered by women dying again, but if he did that, then Ziva would have died in vain and he couldn't do that –he owed her that much. So he trudged on to obtain the vengeance she so desperately deserved. And in the moments before a fitful and torturous sleep finally claimed him, he realized the one thing that was absent from this too familiar scene. The ground outside was dry because it seemed the sky was out of tears now and there was nothing in both him and the clouds because Ziva David was dead and the rain wouldn't fall.


End file.
